From 'Preggers' to 'Pizzle': Android's bizarre list of banned words

Android’s dictionary treats some common words as misspellings — including some of the names of Google’s own products

Ariel Zambelich

There's no "sex" at the Googleplex.

Type or swipe the word on the latest version of Android's Google
Keyboard -- or for that matter "intercourse," "coitus," "screwing"
or even "lovemaking" -- and the web giant's predictive algorithm
will offer no help.

These are just a few examples from an obsessive, and often
baffling list of more than 1,400 English words that Google has
quietly deemed inappropriate for Android users.

They're all part of a strange, 165,000-word dictionary
that appears in the source code of KitKat, the latest version
of the Android operating system.

The banned directory includes "butt" and "geek," all seven of
George Carlin's dirty words, a frat party's worth of homophobia and
misogyny, and is peppered with pornographic sub genres and
fetishistically obscure medical terms, like "gonadatrophia" and
"irrumination." Genitalia is banned (with special attention paid to
women's bodies) as well as a mystifying selection of words that
aren't generally considered offensive, like "thud" and "LSAT."

The filter can be disabled in the Google Keyboard settings,
which makes all words both swipeable and available for
autocomplete. As you can imagine, turning the filter off allows for
foul language and grim racial slurs. But you'll also get mild
euphemisms like "pizzle." You can always choose to manually add
words as well.

Taken as a whole, Google's list suggests not only a surprising
discomfort with sexuality, but also reproductive health and
undergarments. Words like "panty," "braless," "Tampax,"
"lactation," and "preggers" are censored along with sexual health
vocabulary like "uterus" and "STI."

"I try to Swype-type the word 'condom' and I get 'condition' or
'confusion,'" said Jillian York, a spokesperson for the Electronic
Frontier Foundation. "There is no context in which that makes any
sense. Grow up, Android."

Indeed, many of the rules seem to go well beyond simple
inconsistency into the realm of the absurd. For example, there's a
zero tolerance policy on "morphine," "demerol" and barbituric acid
precursor "malonylurea," while "marijuana," "methamphetamine" and
even "bong" are allowed. Islam-related words "Sunni" and "Iftar"
are censored, but many others related to the Muslim faith and other
religions are kosher. Tech outfits "AMD" and "Garmin" are both
verboten and yet Google competitors "Apple" and "Microsoft" are
permitted.

"Klansmen" and "supremacist" are blocked, but "Nazi" is fair
game.

Google declined to comment on how it compiles the list of
offensive words, and how often it's updated. But it's clear that
built-in dictionaries for other languages censor far fewer
words.

As others have pointed out, words included in any dictionary, digital and
otherwise, can quickly become a political issue. Anti-bullying
advocacy group Grin Campaign successfully lobbied the Oxford English Dictionary and
Microsoft Office to include the word "transphobia" in future
editions, and during the runup to the 2008 presidential
election, New York Times blogger David
Pogue pointed out that many versions of Microsoft Office still
did not recognise the name "Obama" (though an updated word list was
available at the time as a patch).

But perhaps the most surprising thing about the Android
dictionary is the number of Google's own products that aren't a
part of it. So while the predictive system will help you out with a
word like "iPhone," you'll get nothing when you type or swipe in
"Chromebook," "Zagat," or "AdMob." In fact, they'll all be marked
as misspelled.